You know, the way it shines, the way it catches the light, the way it reflects and refracts the light.
#MOONLIGHT BARRY JENKINS SKIN#
And, in this film, my approach to the skin was, again, to reflect my memory, my childhood, the beauty of this dark skin. One was, not necessarily the black bodies, but the black skin was very important to me.
#MOONLIGHT BARRY JENKINS MOVIE#
(Photo Credit: David Bornfriend, courtesy of A24) On his approach to moonlight’s cinematography and capturing Black skin on filmīrendan Francis Newnam: But there’s some sequences where you linger on his body, and in the critical reception of this movie, a lot has been talked about how this movie is the movie for this year, and how black bodies have been thought about in ways by the mainstream public that they haven’t before, partially because people are paying more attention to violence perpetrated on them by the police, etc.īarry Jenkins: You know, there were two parts of it. He’s still that kid.” Trevante Rhodes as the adult Chiron. And then I realized, “Oh, if an audience does this, too, then we’re onto something.”īecause you see that character - first, you realize he is who you think he is, and then you go, “Oh, no, he is what I think he is!” And then you see, “Oh, yes, but he’s still that guy. He’s like a bodybuilder.Īnd my experience of him in the room was so jarring –the physicality –that it took me a second to get through and see the vulnerability. On casting Trevante Rhodes (the adult Chiron), who, at first glance, wasn’t who he had in mind for the partīarry Jenkins: My idea of the character wasn’t as - if you’ve seen the film, you know what I’m talking about - as hyper-masculine exterior, as Trevante Rhodes. And then, the morality of it is up to the audience. And I felt like having someone bring life to the life that my mom lived would be productive.
(Photo Courtesy of A24)Īnd so, if I’m ashamed or afraid of putting that character in the world because of what the world thinks of that character and not because of the humanity in my relationships with that character, that’s a problem.Īnd my thing is, I love positive images, but I also love productive images.
#MOONLIGHT BARRY JENKINS CRACK#
And yet, both our moms went through the same struggle with crack cocaine.
I’m a guy who worked at the Telluride Film Festival and had a deal at Focus Features. I think you can still have this character, Chiron, and he could function - the movie could function in a certain way - without that element of the story.īut, to me, it wouldn’t have been true to my life or Terrell’s life. On why it was important to feature Chiron’s crack-addicted mother in the film, played by Naomie Harrisīarry Jenkins: I mean, look, I was, at first, reluctant to write the character. It’s like, “No, I’m making a movie about a kid who’s kind of like Terrell, kind of like me, in the neighborhood we both grew up in.” And so, I didn’t allow any of that stuff to ever enter the equation. Part of it, because I never really conceptualize that intellectually, as though I’m making a coming-of-age story about a queer youth. On whether or not, as a straight man, he had any anxiety about portraying a coming-of-age story about a queer youthīarry Jenkins: No. Terrell kind of passed it to me, and I kind of just took it the rest of the way. And I could see myself in this character.Īnd so, I think of it, like, as a relay race. And both our moms went through the struggle with addiction depicted by Naomie Harris in the film. Went to a few of the same schools, we’ve worked out. And it was beautiful because Terrell and I are very much the same, but in very much different sort of ways. We had mutual friends in Miami - actually, kids Terrell had gone to high school with, and then these same kids I had gone to film school with in Tallahassee at Florida State.Īnd so, they sent the piece to me. Terrell wrote it way back in 2003, when he was an undergrad at DePaul. Interview Highlights On how the script wound up on his radarīarry Jenkins: It’s one of those things - it didn’t happen right away. Each story unspools slowly, focusing on gorgeous imagery and small moments. We meet him first as a boy, then as a teenager, and finally as a twenty-something. The film, based on a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, tells three separate stories about Chiron, a child born and raised in the projects outside Miami. It’s already up for five Golden Globe awards. But his latest - the meditative coming-of-age drama “Moonlight” - is an indie hit and a major Oscar contender. Barry Jenkins’s low-budget debut “A Medicine for Melancholy” put him on critics’ radar.